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Making Winlink Friends - Jewel in the SeaWe departed Bonaire for Klein (Little) Curacao. It was good to finally see the wind fill the sails and feel the rolling motion of the waves. Klein Curacao is but a small speck in the ocean. It is as flat as the proverbial pancake, has no permanent inhabitants, only a few palm-font covered sheds for day trippers from Curacao, and apart from some coconut palms has little vegetation apart from some ground-hugging fat plants. The windward side is a graveyard for boats that didn’t stay out far enough or lost power. A small tanker is gradually being diminished to rust and dust by the constant pounding of the waves. The remains of another four or five boats, one of which might have been a sailboat, are washed far onshore. This is also the site of the island that is a resting place for tons of driftwood, hundreds of flip-flops, thousands of plastic bottles and, indeed, we found a large selection of children’s toys.
In the center of the island is an old lighthouse. It is still functioning although it is not clear how. There was no obvious overhead electric power supply, solar panels or a generator in sight. The huge and very solid outbuildings, that in earlier days must have housed the lighthouse keeper and family, were deserted and are slowly being reclaimed by nature. For a moment I thought how nice it would be to renovate these old buildings and enjoy the views from the balconies to the sea but then it dawned on me that without water supply that dream would soon dry up.
The lee-side of the island is the exact opposite. Virtually all of that side of the island has a beautiful beach, unspoiled not even by foot steps and just a few tracks made by small crabs. The island is occasionally visited by a few day trippers who want to get away from it all. There are about five moorings fairly close into shore. These are for the visiting small tour boats that deliver the day trippers but because they arrive very infrequently it appears that a mooring is nearly always available for the cruising sailor. We picked up a mooring close to the southern tip of the island in the hope that no cruise boat would arrive. Exploring the whole shore line would probably take only a couple of hours. We snorkeled in crystal clear water till we got hungry. We decided to have a barbecue on the beach. First it was back to the boat to get meat, potatoes and vegetables, and condiments and, most importantly, beer. We had to walk to the windward side of the island to collect wood for the fire. It’s a weird and wonderful feeling knowing that we had the whole island for ourselves. Apart from small lizards hustling around in between the ground cover there do not appear to be any other animals on the island.
To read about Curacao click on the link. | ||||||||||||||||
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